Ratan Naval Tata is popularly known as Ratan Tata. He is a pioneer businessman in India and the present Chairman of the Tata Group, India`s largest conglomerate established by Jamsedji Tata, which was further strengthened and expanded by later generations of his family. Ratan Tata was born on December 28, 1937 to Soonoo and Naval Hormusji Tata, a Gujarati-speaking Parsi family in Mumbai.
Despite being born into the wealthy and famous Tata family of Mumbai, Ratan Tata`s childhood was troubled; his parents separated when he was about seven and his younger brother Jimmy five. Ratan Tata is the great grandson of Tata group founder Jamsedji Tata. After his parent`s divorce, both Ratan Tata and his brother were brought up by their grandmother Lady Navajbai. Ratan Tata completed his schooling at the Campion School, Mumbai and graduated from Cornell University in 1962 with a degree in Architecture and Structural Engineering. . He completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School in 1975. Very soon, he was offered with a job at IBM but he turned the offer down.
Ratan Tata`s professional career started with serving the various companies, until he was appointed director-in-charge of The National Radio & Electronics Company Limited (NELCO) in 1971. On the advice of JRD Tata he joined the Tata Group in December 1962. Ratan Tata was first sent to work at Tata Steel in Jamshedpur. He started to work on the floor along with other blue-collar employees. His job responsibilities included shoveling limestone and handling the blast furnaces, which he did with no complex. In 1981, he was selected as the chairman of Tata Industries. Ratan Tata was responsible for transforming the industries into a Group strategy think-tank. Eventually, he promoted several new ventures in high technology businesses
Ratan N Tata has been the Chairman of Tata Sons since 1991. He is also the chairman of the chief Tata companies, including Tata Motors, Tata Steel, Tata Power, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Tea, Taj Hotels, Tata Chemicals, Tata AutoComp Systems and Tata Teleservices. During his tenure of business in TATA Group, the company`s revenues have grown more than ten-fold and added up to Group revenues of $62.5 billion annually. Ratan Tata is also the chairman of two of the largest private sector promoted philanthropic trusts in India.
Other than TATA Group, Ratan Tata is also closely related to various organizations in India and abroad as well. He is the chairman of the Government of India`s Investment Commission and a respected member of the Prime Minister`s Council on Trade and Industry, the National Hydrogen Energy Board and the National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council. This business magnet is involved in the decision-making procedures of the International Investment Council set up by the president of the Republic of South Africa and the UK Prime Minister`s Business Council for Britain.
Ratan Tata is a member of the American International Group, the International Advisory Council of Singapore`s Economic Development Board, the Asia-Pacific Advisory Committee, JP Morgan Chase and Rolls Royce. He is one of the board of directors of the New York Stock Exchange and of the international advisory boards of the Mitsubishi Corporation, the Fiat SpA and the Alcoa.
Ratan Tata serves the Presidentship of the court of the Indian Institute of Science and is the chairman of the Council of Management of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. A member of the board of trustees of Cornell University and the University of Southern California and of the Foundation Board of the Ohio State University, Ratan Tata is also a member of the Programme Board of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation`s India AIDS Initiative and Global Business Council on HIV/AIDS.
The Government of India conferred Ratan Tata with its second highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan in 2008. He had been awarded the Padma Bhushan on India`s 50th Republic Day on 26 January 2000. The Ohio State University honored Ratan Tata with the doctorate degree in business administration. He was also awarded the honorary doctorate degree in technology by the Asian Institute of Technology Bangkok; an honorary doctorate degree in science by the University of Warwick and an honorary fellowship by the London School of Economics. Ratan Tata was one of the worthy recipients of the NASSCOM Global Leadership Awards-2008 given away at a ceremony on February 14 2008 in Mumbai. The Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy in 2007 was given to the Tata family and Ratan Tata accepted it.
Ratan Tata was recently listed among the 25 most powerful people in business by Fortune magazine in November 2007. Soon, in May 2008, he progressed to the Time magazine`s 2008 list of the World`s 100 most influential people. Tata recently inaugurated his tiny car `Nano` worth Rs. 1 lakh.
On 29th August 2008, the Government of Singapore presented honorary citizenship to Ratan Tata, in acknowledgment of his enduring business relationship with the island nation and his input to the growth of high-tech sectors in Singapore. Ratan Tata is the first Indian to receive this honor. After much heated controversy, Ratan Tata launched his Nano Car from the manufacturing unit in Gujarat, by joining hands with the chief minister Narendra Modi. Tata Motors commercially launched Nano on March 23, 2009 and the sales of the car will begin in July 2009 with a starting price of Rs 115,000 (rupees). It has an 8 percent smaller exterior size and a 23 percent larger interior space compared to Maruti 800. Tata had sought to produce the least expensive production car in the world, thus aiming for a starting price of Rs.100,000.
